Documenta 12 Lounch Lectures

On Agoras (v.1)

[N.B. Meaning for the Agora (Part I) text: In ancient Greece: a public open space used for assemblies and markets. Stoa (at the Athens’ agora): the large portico in which the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno gave the founding lectures of the Stoic school of philosophy; Meaning for the Agora (Part II) text: From Hebrew: āgōrāh - small coin]

Part I

Concepts of ‘public sphere’ as a matter of responsibility

The public sphere is not only ‘being democratized’ to say and to critisize whatever was placed and whomever placed her/is statement into the field of public [by different means], but rather to higher the degree of responsibility carried by the both sides of the public dialogue: the placed statement and the critique of it.

Three synchronic concepts:

1. THE AGORA CONCEPT: public sphere as a critic > verbal < - tens of listeners - bodily present for a critique of the statement - direct confrontation: discussions - in front of the public - author’s personal responsibility - temporary responsible for the statement 2. THE BOOK CONCEPT: public sphere as a readership > printed < - hundreds/thousands of readers - materially present for a critique of the statement - post-confrontation: reviews and polemics - behind the name on the cover of the book/review - publisher’s meta-responsibility - temporally responsible for the statement 3. THE BLOG CONCEPT: public sphere as entertained subject > pixeled < - tens of thousands of surfers - virtually present for a critique of the statement - mediated confrontation: adds, podcasts, posts, comments, impressions - ‘hidden’ behind the monitor/reply - blogger’s quasi-responsibility - ephemerally responsible for the statement So, as much the public sphere is democratized [and especially - decentred], that less responsibility is present. Or: isn’t our ‘transited’ and less personally responsible modernity turned back to some ‘quasi’ antiquity?

Part II:

If an art magazine is, as first, exchange of information,
to what purpose it is printed?

Among the several specifies of publishing [printed] contemporary art magazine in the region of Central and South Eastern Europe [CSEE] (besides the known problems of financing, distribution, technical issues, etc.), the basic doubt of the publisher [and the initial idea about the publishing in general] are the starting questions: to what reason the publishing of the magazine is addressed? and to whom this exchange of information is most beneficial?
These two questions, at the first glance, are seemed not even worth mentioning, since the answer is known: to the art world, i.e. to and for the art public, professionals (artists, curators), art institutions and art market. Yes, but is it only so?

The doubtedness of this ‘known’ answer raises out of several circumstances.
First of all, the ‘known’ public is self-understandable for the developed art-magazine markets where the market of publications is so much developed that there is almost one magazine per each particular interest, i.e. specific art product. This differentiation is not common for the region of CSEE. The main problem of the ‘addressed’ reason and art public derives from the condition of publishing mostly one art magazine. In the case where one can publish one or two art magazines (limited not only from the financing aspects, lack of funds, sponsorships or advertisements, but rather from the number of art critics and art writers and qualitative art production/art-works) the one is stacked into the problem of the content.
To define the content (what to publish) is bigger problem then the methods (how to publish), even bigger than the dissemination (how to distribute it - which is, from a specific side, the essential problem). And above all of this, comes the issue of the context (why to publish)! From here on it ends with the conclusion that the content is processually depended on the context. In other words: why we are publishing magazines? The answer is also known: to exchange the information, to evaluate, to systematise, to historicize, to educate and to disseminate the ideas and statements. Hence: for what purpose is all of this?

The very history of publishing printed art magazines has two basic and starting points: the first one is the exchange of knowledge (which is based upon the ideas of the late 18th century Rationalism and the Enlightenment) and the second one is the exchange of goods (which is idea based on the market oriented economy/society). Both of the starting points were generated from the reason (that generates another cause): the exchange of capital. By that, the pre- or early modern idea of the art as exchange of symbolic values turned into an idea of the art as exchange of market values.
And from here on, if we do accept this interpretation and speaking of publishing printed art magazine in the societies that are lacking developed system of exchange of the market values, that means that the only starting point which lefts is the first one, the one of the late 18th century Rationalism and the Enlightenment: exchange of knowledge. Or, at least, our belief that the exchange of knowledge is still worth spending what the creative and intellectual capacities have to and can do – what they are only structured around and, therefore, believe in.
To make it clearer, in the societies of this region one can say that there is certain art system. I do not want to go deeper in this analysis, but still and in fact, some art system still exists, inherited from the previous times [at least speaking for SFR Yugoslavia, i.e. Skopje Museum of Contemporary Art is the second established contemporary art museum at the whole Balkan in the mid 1960s with an important international collection of art works from the 1960s and 1970s). The infrastructural system is also good enough developed (museums, galleries, cultural centres, high education level of studying for artists and art historians, Ministry of Culture with the Low for Culture and National Programme for Culture, NGOs in the field of culture) and one can say that there is art system. But, what is incomparable with the western societies is that this system was built upon the ideas of the Enlightenment, as an exchange of knowledge and aesthetic values - only. This system never thought (it was out of it's thought) on building and structuring market driving forces, elements and processes. Art or intellectual ‘production’ was never treated by a meaning of exchangeable good on/for the market, even that it was still labelled as ‘labour’ (according to the leftist theories).

Finally, what was once in our understanding advantage turns now a day into a problem: such an art system based upon the aesthetic, theoretical and historical values never generated market oriented art system. And, in my understanding, this is the crucial source for the problems of the today’s printed art magazines: they were never designed and produced as the other side of the one and the very same coin - the exchange of the capital. One does understand and even more experience that now: that the exchange of knowledge was designed for the needs and purposes of the exchange of goods, meant as a tool of the exchange of capital.


And back to the questioned title, the exchange of information (does not matter does it have Gutenbergian or McLuhanian origin) is a tool for an enlargement of the knowledge as a tool driven for the purposes of the exchange of the capital. And this is the context in which the printed art magazine from CSEE has to exist (does not matter who of us agrees or not). And this context drives the content of it. And this is the starting point to find the answer to the question: to what and to whom the art magazine from CSEE is addressed?


Documenta 12 Lounch Lectures, July 17, 2007